Truth
by Verdantia Akalixi
Summary: Maddie Phantom has finally captured the notorious Phantom, and - now that she has him firmly restrained on her shiny steel lab table - is seeking answers to the questions that the perplexing ectoplasmic entity always ends up causing. The answers she seeks, however, may not be the answers she actually finds... Revelation fic.


Hallo, everyone (I've decided to be Australian today). This is a revelation one-shot that's been languishing on my cpu for...at least a year. Heh. Ah'm posting it on a whimsical wobbling whim, so have fun:)

Me no own. *Pouts*

-x-

Danny slowly woke up, yawning and stretching. Eyes still closed, he murmured, "Mom, I had the strangest dream."

Maddie Fenton, hopeful that the ghost would let slip some information, encouraged him. "What was it?"

"I dreamed that you finally captured me...it was so realistic. I was afraid you'd discover my secret, and..." He frowned sleepily.

"What secret, Phantom?"

He came fully awake, and hurriedly shouted, "I can't tell you! Wait...Phantom?" He opened his eyes and looked confused for a moment, then a strange expression crossed his ghostly face.

_ Hmm._ She thought. _Maybe he _hasn't_ completely mastered human expressions. That certainly isn't one you see every day._

"Ohhhh. It wasn't a dream." Then some realization hit him and he shot bolt upright. "Never mind! Never mind, never mind, I never said anything, never mind."

_What is it that he doesn't want me to know? And how did he manage to mistake me for his_ mother_? He seemed so confused when I called him Phantom...Well, in his human life Phantom probably wasn't his name. Oh. He must have forgotten that he was dead. I didn't know it was possible for ghosts to do that, but it would make sense. That still wouldn't explain the fact that he thought that his mom had captured him, and the fear of discovery. Maybe he was hiding something dangerous or illegal when he was alive...something that maybe led to his death?_

_ Argh. What a confusing ghost._

Meanwhile, as she let her thoughts run away with her, Phantom had been watching her curiously. "Mo-uh, Maddie? Is there something wrong?"

She eyed him warily. "You're wrong."

He blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

Her wary gaze became annoyed. Pointing at him with an accusing finger, she said, "You are the most confusing ghost I have ever recorded the existence of. You don't fit any of the typical ghost archetypes at all!" She began to pace the room. "You appear to have a much finer mastery of emotions and expressions than the average ghost. You are much more powerful than the average ghost, despite your ecto-core registering on the scanners as under five years old. You-"

He interrupted her, his voice rising in panic. "Wait wait wait. You _know_ how _old _I am?"

The finger was back to pointing. "And you have no regard to basic survival instincts! Interrupting the ghost hunter that has you restrained on a dissection table! You appear to do good things, to deceive us into thinking that you might, possibly, have a vestigial conscious, then go and pull some insane stunt that rivals an ectoplasmic entity that's not even corporal enough to have artificial sentience!"

His eyes lit up with frustration. "Those weren't my fau-" He abruptly shut his mouth at Maddie's furious glare.

"And you continue!" She exclaimed. "You're almost as hard to figure out as my son!" The scientist deep inside the raging frustration sent up red flags at Phantom's sudden change in demeanor. He instantly paled, taking a quick, panicked breath, toxic green aura flaring even brighter. He recomposed himself an instant later, but it was too late. Maddie's frustration was already fading into the cool logic of a professional scientist. "What was that?" She interrogated.

His eyes darted to the ceiling, inspecting the white paint diligently. "What was what?"

She was undeterred. "Phantom. I know you can feel pain, unlike other ghosts." He visibly winced at being singled out as different once again. "Now. You can tell me what I want to know..."

When the scientist trailed off ominously, Danny couldn't help but take the bait and ask, voice hesitant, "Or what?"

Her gaze was steely and unwavering. "Or I start the vivisection right here, right now."

The halfa gulped as her deft fingers plucked a razor sharp scalpel from the tray. "Ummm...I don't, umm..." He paused, eyes following the glint of light reflecting off of the shiny metal. "It depends on, um, what you're asking..."

Her eyes narrowed. "We'll see." She noted Phantom tugging on the ecto-proof restraints. No doubt the ghost felt horribly exposed and vulnerable, unable to move more than an inch in either direction. The ecto-proof restraints were made with diluted ectoranium. After contact for more than a couple minutes, he would get a nasty rash.

If ghosts got rashes, anyway. Ghosts had no physiological structure, but if Phantom believed he did, then...Her thought process ground to an abrupt halt. The ghost was different in every other way. The rise and fall of his chest added another piece of empirical evidence to the theory that was beginning to form in the depths of her mind, struggling against decades of hard belief.

_This...this could be...is it possible..._She dropped the scalpel. Phantom flinched at the clatter as it plummeted to the floor, eyes wide and fearful at the scientist's absent gaze. Maddie abruptly turned and left the room, but before he could breathe a sigh of relief, he heard words that chilled his ectoplasmic blood.

"Jack! Where do we keep the stethoscope?" When she returned five minutes later, the halfa was practically hyperventilating. The cool metal of the stethoscope was pressed against his chest, and he could only watch as Maddie's eyes widened in startled surprise.

Maddie was in shock. She sat down hard in her desk chair. "This isn't possible..." she muttered. "It...couldn't be possible...there's no way that..."

Phantom shifted uncomfortably and her gaze shot to his. Her eyes held an overwhelming curiosity tempered with unyielding disbelief in what couldn't possibly exist. "Phantom. How did you die?"

He opened his mouth, then shut it. A long moment of silence passed, his deep, brilliant green eyes searching her own, and she felt as if he was judging her. The strength of his toxic gaze was such that after what seemed like forever, she had to look down. Suddenly, it seemed as if she was the captured specimen and he the hunter. When she glanced back up, his eyelids slowly slid shut, as if trying to delay the inevitable. "I..." He took a deep breath. "I didn't...totally die."

Maddie, a grown woman of thirty-three, an accomplished scientist in her field of study, was whirling and falling in a vortex that shrunk her back to the age of ten, when she found out that the butterflies she loved hatched from repulsive caterpillars. "How?" She whispered in a small voice.

His eyes once again met her own, pleading for understanding. "I'm only half-dead." He spoke, and paused almost as if expecting an outburst. "I..I'm alive, too."

Her brilliant mind was working overtime, assembling the pieces to the puzzle and slotting them into place. A whirlwind of images assaulted her. _Shooting at Phantom. Danny coming home and trying to hide his limp. Threatening Phantom. Danny's recent skittishness. Phantom showing up to fight hostile ghosts. Lancer calling saying Danny was absent from school. Phantom almost panicking when I compared him to my son.  
_

_Phantom's heartbeat, slow but deep and steady._

A tear made its way down her cheek, quickly followed by another on the opposite side. The tear tracks converged, and a single drop of sadness marked her immaculate white lab coat. Her voice was even softer, almost inaudible. "Danny?"

She was rewarded with a tentative smile and two blinding rings of light that covered him from head to toe, leaving her baby boy stretched out on the lab table. "Hi, Mom."

Time froze for a brief instant.

Then Maddie flew to her son and, releasing his restraints, gathered him up in a bone-crushing hug. His tears joined her own as they embraced. In that instant, Maddie was no longer the brilliant scientist, and Danny was no longer the half-ghost hero.

They were a mother and son. Maybe something more.

But definitely nothing less.

-x-

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